Ted Gay, editor emeritus of the Taunton Daily Gazette, dead at 85

Ted Gay, editor emeritus of the Taunton Daily Gazette, died Tuesday morning at Morton Hospital. He was 85.

Edgar A. “Ted” Gay Jr. began his career at the Gazette when he was hired as a reporter in 1950.

He first covered courts, police and politics for the Gazette, according to his New England Newspaper and Press Association Hall of Fame listing.

He was appointed the Taunton Daily Gazette’s city editor in 1963, managing editor in 1968, and “retired” in 1991.

Gay wrote columns from his retirement until his death, his last one appeared on Monday.

He worked as a Silver City newspaperman during 15 mayoral administrations, recalled his daughter, Vicki-Ann Downing.

“He just lived and breathed everything going on in the city of Taunton,” Downing said Tuesday afternoon. “And he felt people needed to hear his opinion.”

As managing editor, Gay launched the Gazette’s first editorial page. For decades, he kept it populated with editorials and columns.

His popular Saturday Notebook column ran consistently, never missing an installment, for nearly a half-century.

When Gay occasionally embarked on a two-week vacation, he’d leave a stack of 14 editorials with the Gazette staff, to keep his hungry readers well fed until he returned.

“It’s a sad day for the Taunton Daily Gazette and for the larger GateHouse family,” Publisher Lisa Strattan said. “Even though he retired years ago, Ted remained at least a weekly presence in the newsroom. I know he was a mentor to so many journalists, young and old, and he was an institution in the community as well. I think he might have preferred to be remembered as a ‘newsman’ as opposed to ‘journalist,’ because that was what he truly was. News was what mattered to him.”

Gay died Tuesday from complications suffered after a fall at his home one week ago.

Funeral arrangements have been made with Silva Funeral Home, Downing said. Calling hours will be from 4-7 p.m. on Friday at the funeral home on Broadway. The funeral will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Andrew the Apostle Church, Kilmer Avenue.

“He was a dear friend,” Taunton attorney Frank O’Boy said. “He was a terrific editor and he had a great love for Taunton, although he grew up in Middleboro. He started out as a rock-ribbed Republican but he became more liberal as he grew older. He had newsprint in his blood. He was a voice of reason at a time of extremism. This is a loss to the community. And I’ve lost a friend.”

Joseph L. Amaral, Taunton’s mayor from 1978-81, said Gay’s death “will be felt by the city of Taunton for years to come.”

“His inquisitive nature and sincere interest in our city resulted in his newspaper column being very stimulating for decades,” Amaral said. “Ted’s strength was in the area of communication skills and he was consistently able to make his views and thoughts known in a clear and concise manner. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Ted’s family and friends as they struggle to cope with our loss.”

Gay left the Gazette shortly after he started with the paper, to serve in the U.S. Army in Korea in 1951.

Downing recalled Gay “did not enjoy” his stint in the service.

He wrote home faithfully, though, and on July 19, 1952, a young reporter named Eleanor Menice wrote a small piece on Gay’s experiences overseas.

“This week came a letter from Korea from army staffer Ted Gay,” Menice wrote. “Among other things he wrote about, he asked fellow staffers to do him a favor. ‘If you have time, you might write my draft board and tell them they’ve carried this ‘joke’ a mite too far!’”

When Gay returned home, he met and eventually married that young reporter, and together they had two children, Vicki-Ann and Ted Gay III.

His wife died in 2010.

“Ted Gay worked very hard to uphold the high standards of journalism throughout his career,” recalled former Taunton mayor and local historian Charles Crowley. “Ted made it a point to examine all sides of the issues that help shape our city's future during his tenure as a reporter and an editor, but with a keen eye towards our precious history. Ted Gay kept his readers informed and involved in current events and kept all of the politicians on their toes.”

Gay championed any endeavor he felt would strengthen the city he loved.

“Ted Gay was and will always be one of my best friends,” said City Councilor Gerald Croteau, a former Taunton Schools superintendent. “I felt perfectly comfortable discussing anything with him. He had a total love and commitment to the people who lived here. And what governed his writing was fairness and the belief that people, especially those in elected or appointed positions, should work in the interest of the people he also served. He was a man of integrity to the fullest. Some would say he was a stubborn New England Yankee, but he was a class act. I will continue to have conversations with him. He was one of the best friends I’ll ever have.”

Gay served as president of the Taunton Area Chamber of Commerce. He helped found The Friends of the Library, and served on the library’s Board of Trustees. Many other boards and organizations helped fill Gay’s few free hours.

The late Tim Taylor, a former Gazette reporter, press secretary to three Speakers of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and graduate of the “Ted Gay School of Journalism,” recalled meeting Gay as he was transitioning from reporter to city editor in the early 1960s.

“He was an imposing ruddy-faced, pipe-smoking fellow with big, round, black-framed Clark Kent glasses, and a coat sweater intended to add some patina of age and experience to the new city editor who was all of 29,” Taylor wrote in the program for a Testimonial event held in 1992 to commemorate Gay’s retirement a year earlier. “The old Gazette building where Ted reigned reeked of ink and well-oiled presses and epitomized the rough and tumble world of newspapering.”

That historic structure was demolished, and the current Gazette building built in its place.

“We reporters knew only a little about Ted Gay,” Taylor wrote. “We knew he was from Middleboro, was a graduate of Boston University School of Journalism, joined the Gazette in 1950, and served in the infantry on the frontline in Korea. And we knew one other thing. Ted Gay could write like hell.”

For many well informed city residents, the Gazette and its longtime editor were practically indistinguishable.

“Even their names,” said Downing, who spent so much time growing up in the newsroom. “Taunton Gazette. Ted Gay. They both had ‘T’ and ‘G’ as initials. It just worked out that way. The two were synonymous in a lot of ways.”